A blog by Jen Remnant and Hamied Haroon.

Academic conferences offer opportunities to present exciting discoveries, share ideas and build networks. Attendees have the chance to meet up with new colleagues and old friends from far flung places as well as learn about the latest work in their field. However, for a long time many disabled researchers have raised issues around how inaccessible conferences are. Rather than excitement for the plenary speaker or a panel discussion, our first thoughts relate to the practicalities of actually attending the conference: its location, the accessibility of the conference venue, nearby accommodation, conference dinners and available transport. The global reach of ableism and changing nature of academia suggests that, despite best intentions, disabled researchers face significant barriers that exclude us. 

There are financial barriers to accessing conferences. They are expensive and not all funding bodies or institutions finance the conference fee, travel or accommodation. Whether as a result of travel to another country, socialising out of hours with colleagues or paying for conference materials, academic networking of this kind can be pricey. Further to this, even for those that are funded, or have access to a free space at a conference, there are additional exclusionary tactics to navigate. An intimidating combination of academic etiquette, language and social practices are usually upheld, maintaining divisions between attendees. Seemingly closed networks result in job offers on the staircase, vital social interactions, a word in the ear of funders or advisory panel members. It requires a combination of financial and cultural capital which may be insurmountable to colleagues who require a personal assistant with them, need to travel with a service animal or are perceived to deviate from social norms.

There are also physical access issues. Conferences often take place across a number of buildings, with lifts frequently filled with other participants and access via dropped curbs and ramped entry points blocked. Accessible toilets are frequently used inappropriately for storage, inadequately maintained, or limited in number. Sessions, set up to adhere to ableist norms, sometimes have to be interrupted as tables and chairs are rearranged to allow for specialist mobility equipment. Presentations are usually given from a podium, or lectern – keynotes in particular are often delivered from a stage. A good conference will have a platform lift to the stage, but they can be noisy. Conference scheduling often does not allow very much time between speakers, so when should the lift be used, during the conclusion of the previous speaker’s talk? 

Why should humiliation be part and parcel of the conference experience? Networking sessions may take place in standing spaces, where those who are fatigued from extended working days of conferencing are too tired to stay.  What language are these presentations and conversations being spoken in? Is there BSL interpretation, speech to text captioning, audio descriptions and/or hearing loops? Is the signage clear and accessible? Managing all these concerns can make conference attendance stressful, distressing and exhausting for those of us whose needs have not been adequately considered in the planning stages. 

These planning mistakes are easily made. Both of us writing this blog have hosted or organised academic conferences where physical attendance was expected of participants. Though both of us have sought to make these conferences as accessible and inclusive as possible, there are often issues noticed too late, or seemingly ‘small’ details overlooked. Traditional academic norms and standards are deeply embedded into the practices of individuals, but also the institutional logics of the sector more broadly. Data collected as part of the DISC project has highlighted academic conferences as a significant site of exclusion for disabled academics. It has illustrated how these norms and standards inform exclusive practice. Senior managers interviewed as part of the project regularly acknowledged how attendance at particular conferences is a ‘given’ in their discipline, how they facilitate important networking interactions and career progression. There was limited imagination present in the interviews as to how to think more creatively about how to share and promote academic work.

It is time to redesign our learning institutions, including Higher Education Institutions. Why not start with conferences? Until there is a credible vaccine, we will not be gathering in large groups. So why not use this opportunity to remodel the academic network and reprioritise access and inclusivity over physical proximity? Everything is having to go online. Learned associations and societies can draw from this impetus to create more inclusive virtual conferences at last. 

As the lockdown came in, many institutions and learned societies have cancelled their events and activities or postponed until late-2020/early-2021. However, with the global risks of COVID-19 lingering on, activities now have to move online for the sake of continuity. Organisations have been forced to plan their first virtual conferences, including how to provide social interactions. It can be done. Previous to the lockdown, disabled academics, researchers and lecturers have always been told that working from home was not possible, even as a reasonable adjustment. Though now we can see that everyone has to work from home, it obviously was possible, and is now liberating for many disabled colleagues. 

This unnecessary resistance to changing practices is present in discussions of conferences. There is pushback to taking them online because many believe it to be impossible to profit from the social aspects of conferences if held virtually. But of course, this has been the experience of numerous colleagues excluded from attending conferences because they are inaccessible. Moving online has plenty of potential, we can centre accessibility and inclusivity. It is important to choose the right platform that offers full accessibility features. During the lockdown platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet have been getting better at the features they offer. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) provides some useful guidelines and standards.

Changes resulting from lockdown are now allowing us to see how we have been treating each other, and how we have an opportunity to redress inequalities in our practices. There are so many negatives to the pandemic. Isolation, overwhelming caring duties, fear, job loss, precarity and bereavement are all features of 2020 across the world. The response to the current crisis is taking a devastating toll on the disabled community, situating us in policy and social practices as collateral damage, discussed in depth in NADSN’s Covid-19 position paper. The economic fallout will be disproportionately borne by disabled people, and it goes without saying that many disabled people have underlying health conditions that put them at additional risk of coronavirus. There are few silver linings to this pandemic, and we would argue that it is incumbent on activists and academics to extract and emphasise any possible gains triggered by the disease and subsequent lockdown. We should grasp the opportunities for positive change with enthusiasm. We can focus on what we can control, and for us as academics, that means access to the academy. This is an opportunity to shake off tired, exclusive practices and welcome the creative talent of a diverse and representative collection of colleagues to the new face of academic conferences.